


Obsession

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark Dean, Gen, Protective Gabriel, Stalking, Threat of future abuse, harrassment, reference to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 19:49:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12919038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: Still furious that Cas managed to escape them, Dean decides to go and search for his former angel.Cas finds him first.





	Obsession

It’s three months to the day from when Cas vanished that Dean decides he’s taking a trip.

Sam's driving him up the fucking wall, pulling hunts out of his ass with that tried and tested technique of ‘distracting Dean so he doesn’t do anything _else_ stupid’.

He was done trying to explain it to Sam. He should haven’t had to even _try_.

Sam was there for all of Cas’s greatest hits. He still bore the scars. 

But that aside, it was clear Sam just didn’t get it. 

Dean supposes he can’t expect Sam to, not reasonably. They’re both coming at this from different angles.

Sam is all about redemption. He honestly believes in giving Cas a chance to make things up to them, in gradually earning back some kind of place in their lives. 

It won’t be much of a place, Dean figures, but that’s Sam’s plan. Not his.

He doesn't really know what his is.

He can’t think clearly around Cas.

When he tries, it feels like he’s being pulled under inside his own head, swamped by the conflict of feelings he has about the angel. _Ex-angel_.

Dean isn’t much for self-contemplation, but he’s aware that sometimes he doesn’t work right. That sometimes he loves something so badly he ends up hurting it, and then he’s wracked with guilt and confusion as he tries to figure out _why_.

The legacy of the great John Winchester, he supposes, and then dismisses that as a cop-out. He’s never let himself off the hook for anything.

But if there's any blame here...any at all…

Dean knows where to put it.

++

Just outside of some one street town called Franklin, Dean stumbles over a crossroads, and figures to give it another try.

He’s more than surprised when his call goes right to the top.

Crowley appears, hands in his pockets, glaring at him.

“Well,” Dean says. “And I thought you’d stopped taking my calls.”

“I have,” Crowley tells him. “But the staff are getting sick of you redialling. After this, consider your number blocked.”

Dean huffs at him. “Oh. The King of Hell suddenly has standards?”

“Oh, I’ve always had standards, Dean. It says a lot when you’re more fucked in the head than anything I’ve got locked up downstairs.”

Great. Now he has Crowley at him as well. “You and Sam vying for number 1 shitty ex-angel fan?”

The look on Crowley’s face almost has Dean reaching for his knife. No, the fucking deal closer of Hell does not get to look down on him, not over this.

“Stop hitting up the crossroads,” Crowley says at last. “None of my people are going to help you find him.”

“He fucked you over too.”

Crowley nods. “And that’s between me and him. This isn’t. I have to say, though, Dean…. I never saw this coming. Of course, neither did Castiel.”

“Yeah, well maybe he fucking should have!” But he’s yelling at an empty road, because Crowley's gone.

_Fine_ , Dean thinks. _Fuck you, and fuck Sam. I’ll find him myself, and I’ll drag what’s left of his sorry ass back home._

He wonders if Cas can still hear prayers at all, if though human he still has some access to angel radio.

He half hopes so. Yes, it could give Cas a heads up that Dean is looking for him.

But Dean spends a lot of time thinking about what he’s going to do to Cas, and he gets a dark thrill out of imagining Cas having to think about it too.

“It’s a fucking preview, Cas,” Dean promises, as he grabs his shit from the road, dumps it in the trunk and then gets back in the car.

++

Two nights later, Dean hears something he never thought he’d hear again. He’s awake instantly, sitting up, hand closing on the gun on the nightstand.

But by then Cas has arrived.

He’s isn’t dressed like he used to be. Not in the suit and trench. Not in the hoodie and jeans Dean had given to him when he’d first made it back to them.

The angel...and how the fuck did that happen...is wearing a black shirt, and jeans, and a leather jacket over the top.

Dean won’t deny he looks good. Kind of like the Cas that strode into the barn that first night, if a little sharper. 

A little more worn.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Cas.” He stays calm, but his mind races. The holy oil’s in Baby’s trunk. He has handcuffs and a syringe and a few ampoules of a sedative in his duffel, but that’s at the foot off the bed.

And none of that is going to work on Cas anymore, it seems.

He still has his angel blade, but it’s in his duffel too. Anyway, he doesn’t want to kill Cas.

He wants to take him home.

“You’ve been searching for me.”

Dean shrugs. “You left kind of sudden. Wanna tell me how you managed that?”

“Does it matter?”

It's hard to hold on to his temper. “Yeah. Nobody said you could go. You know the rules, Cas. When you showed up, I told you.”

Cas smiles, but it’s slow, and sad, and that makes Dean angrier than before. Like the little fucker has the right to feel sorry for himself.

“I remember you telling me you’d give me another chance to make things up to you both. You never said how. But anyway. Your rules don’t apply to me, anymore, Dean.”

“No?” Dean launches himself out of the bed, gets up in Cas’s space before his sense of good judgement can overrule his anger. “You think this changes anything? You still owe me, you little shit. You still owe Sam! If you think I’m just letting you go-”

He doesn’t get to finish. Cas’s eyes flare, cold and crystal-blue. He grabs the front of Dean’s tee, and hoists him up and then slams him down onto the bed.

Dean’s gun goes flying, and he claws at Castiel’s hands, but it’s like scratching at stone.

Cas is astride him, pinning Dean in place.

“I don’t owe you anything, Dean. Not any more. You took your penance. You hurt me in ways I didn’t think you could. And maybe I deserved it. But, either way, you won’t be doing it again.”

“I get to decide when you’ve paid your dues, Cas. Me, me and Sam. Not you. Figures you wouldn't get how that works.”

There’s a look of grim acceptance on the angel’s face, then, as if he knew better than to expect Dean to listen.

He lets him go, backs away.

“Don’t come after me, Dean. Even after everything, I don’t want to hurt you. Or Sam.”

The unspoken threat’s there, and though Dean knows he’ll come off the worst, he’s still tempted to get up and slam his fist into Cas’s face.

“You go near Sam….”

But Cas is gone. There’s a flutter of wings and the room is empty, and Dean screams his rage. Cas was there, in front of him. Charged up again.

All the shitty things he’s done, and yet he gets to go back to being one of the God squad.

And out of Dean’s reach.

Or so he thinks.

Dean packs his gear faster than he ever has. He doesn’t bother with a shower, just pulls on his clothes and hauls his duffel out to the car. His cell is pinned between his shoulder and his ear as he sticks the bag in the trunk and then unlocks the door.

“Sam? Yeah, it’s me. I found him. I mean, he found me, and he’s…. He got his grace back. No, I don’t know how, but if he thinks that’s it, that we’re done…. I don’t know, okay? I’m heading back, and we’ll work out what to do. Okay, see ya.”

Dean pulls out of the parking lot fast enough to clip the kerb on the way out. He doesn’t even notice.

Gabriel does. He watches the car speed away, and thinks how easy it would be to just nudge that big truck a couple of miles further out onto the wrong side of the road.

Or jam the Impala’s accelerator pedal, just before that really tight turn up ahead.

But he’d promised Cas, and enough people have broken their word to his little brother.

He’s just glad Cas didn’t make him swear not to follow him here. He just asked, and Gabriel didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no.

He knows Cas can take care of himself. Especially now. And he isn’t downplaying the fact that Cas survived months of abuse and neglect courtesy of his ‘supposed’ family.

But if there’s one thing he knows about Dean and Sam Winchester, it’s that they never give up.

He thinks he knows why Cas wanted to come here, confront Dean. What he hoped for.

Gabriel could have told him better, but maybe Cas had to see it for himself. 

He thinks Cas hoped that when he saw Dean, now he was an angel again, he’d see some sickness in his righteous man that was to blame for everything and that he could cure with a touch.

Oh, Dean’s sick alright. But it’s nothing any angel can fix. The same goes for his giant of a brother.

At least Cas knows, now.

And Gabriel does too. He spreads his wings, picks up his little brother’s trail, and gets ready to follow him.

Cas can’t be alone with this.

And since it’s clear Dean won’t stop, Gabriel figures Cas shouldn’t be alone at all.

He might be forbidden to hurt either one of those humans, but that doesn’t mean Gabriel is going to leave his little brother wide open and vulnerable.

They, neither of them, are ever getting close to Castiel again.


End file.
